Gcrush Wrote:
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> Is Yammy USA going to be selling the Patlabor in
> the states?

It is, I got mine from BBTS, and I've seen it at a few other stores here in SoCal. It's $250, which is a bargain compared to importing is. It's the only reason I bought one, since otherwise it would be over $300 going through importers.

After importing two Mugen Caliburs, getting something locally for less is welcome.

I feel like being pedantic. Why does he call it Pat-LAW-bohr? It's spelled Patoreibaa in katakana. The correct rendering is Pat-LAY-ber, which corresponds to the two words that its a contraction of: patrol and labor. If he wants to be faithful to the Japanese name why doesn't he call it Pot-oh-lay-bah?

I just got my AV-98 2 delivered to my office just now. I didn't manage to get the first one because it was sold out everywhere.

Man, this toy simply oozes quality all over. Upon opening the styro box, I was rather surprised they used cloth instead of plastic film to protect the toy! one for the back and one for the front. It's a really nice touch, I must say.

As for the toy itself, it's AWESOME. I haven't really played with it much yet. Just took out the main unit for inspection. It's sitting at the corner of my workdesk as I'm typing this. Yes, I'm stealing glances at it every 10 seconds. The quality is very different from the other Yamato toys I've owned. Almost as if they've outsourced this the way Toynami did with the MPC Ride Armor. And I've owned quite a few Yamato toys... starting with their first fully transformable diecast YF-19. The QC and plastic quality is actually very Bandai/CM's(their earlier Brave Gokins I mean) if you ask me. Even the material they used is different. Glossy hard plastic all over. And I like the leather better than the cloth-like material CM's used for their Brave Gokin Ingram. No tears as far as I can see, unlike an unlucky soul at ToysDaily that had a tiny rip at the back of the neck.

It's pretty heavy - nice solid feel. This is a pleasant surprise considering the box was a bit light.

I haven't played with the gimmicks yet. Probably exactly the same as the first AV98 so you can check out the older photo reviews to find out. Not very 'convenient' to play with it extensively with many managers and colleagues around me. Maybe I'll go home late so I can fiddle with him more since I can't bring him home anyway (my store room's filled up literally from the flooor to the ceiling). Will attach pics soon I hope, but I'm sure somebody else will post them.